My wife’s been battling cancer since 2013. I owe her my time now
ALEC STEWART explains emotional call to step down as Surrey boss, dismisses the county’s ‘moneybags’ tag and reveals his cricketing regret
ALEC STEWART allows a glimpse inside his hard-earned reputation as the ultimate unflinching professional when reflecting on his decision to walk out of the gates that bear his name at the Oval for the last time as Surrey’s director of cricket.
‘I can be seen as unemotional and maybe even a little bit cold but telling the players I was stepping down was tough,’ says a man synonymous with Surrey. ‘I care for those players and standing up in front of them wasn’t easy. But once I’ve made a decision, I’m pretty good at moving on. and I know I will always be walking through those gates, whether it’s as a supporter or whatever comes next.’
It is difficult to envisage Surrey or the Oval without the man known throughout the cricketing fraternity as ‘the Gaffer’ — an appropriate nickname for one of england and Surrey’s greatest players and a highly successful boss of the leading county in the country. But after more than a decade of achievement since returning to the club he and his father
Micky served with distinction as players, Stewart Jnr is leaving the Oval for the only reason that would ever take him away. the good of his family.
Stewart’s wife lynn is in a long and ongoing battle with cancer, a fight the couple have always handled privately and with great dignity, and the time has finally come for alec to fulfil a promise he made when he retired in
2003 after 23 years as a Surrey stalwart. ‘I said to lynn when I stopped playing, “I owe you time. You brought up the kids on your own”. and it’s about time I gave her that,’ Stewart tells Mail Sport. ‘If I don’t do it now, it will be another year, then another because I do love this job.
‘But I can’t be selfish. If I’m going to do something, it has to be at full capacity and it goes back to something Dad said to me when I was a kid: “whatever you do, make sure you do it to the best of your ability. Don’t play at it, work at it and give it a red hot go.” I’ve carried that through but I can’t keep on giving 100 per cent commitment to this job. I need to give that to lynn.
‘I’ve had lots of lovely messages with people saying, “I hope lynn’s OK”. Fact is, she’s been battling this, on and off, since 2013 but if she was really bad now I’d be stepping down straight away.
‘But — and touch wood everything is going to be fine — I’m going at the end of the year because it’s a planned thing. It’s the right way to do it and it also gives the club time to decide what they want to do next.’ How Surrey will need that time, because Stewart is close to irreplaceable.
He was asked to return to the Oval by richard thompson and richard Gould, now the duo at the top of english cricket, with the famous old club at a particularly low ebb in 2013.
Surrey had been rocked by the tragic death of tom Maynard, one of their most promising young players, in the year before and cultural issues had played a part in taking them to what is unthinkable now — relegation later that summer from the top flight of the championship. Maynard died on a train track while high on drugs and alcohol after a team night out.
Fast forward 11 years and Surrey are a domestic behemoth thanks to the off-field work of thompson and Gould and the on-field expertise of Stewart. today they begin Stewart’s last season at the helm against lancashire at Old trafford as hot favourites to become the first county since Yorkshire in the 1960s to win three consecutive championship
titles. ‘I did come in at a difficult time,’ says Stewart. ‘The loss of Tom affected everyone but if there was any good to come out of that tragedy, it was that things needed to change.
‘It wasn’t going to happen overnight and that’s why it took me two years to get the squad where I wanted it to be. I’m massive on character and personality and we needed to get the right people in and around the playing set-up.
‘When the two Richards asked me to come back I said to them, “You know how much I love this club. It goes back to when my dad was playing and it’s been my second home and second family. Let me do this my way. If I do it well, pat me on the back. But if I don’t, then kick me out”.
‘And it has always been that way, including after they left and Steve Elworthy took over. The club put faith and trust in me and allowed me to do the job for 11 years and hopefully when I leave people will think it’s in better shape than when I came in.’
There is no doubt Surrey are in better shape. But is English cricket? Stewart, who has done as much for the game as anyone, is perfectly qualified to comment on the changing landscape which sees franchises challenging the primacy of international and county cricket.
‘International cricket has to be the most important thing and that means, for Test cricket, you have to have a strong domestic red- ball competition,’ says Stewart. ‘We have that and I still think players who franchises want to sign for big money have made their name in international cricket first.
‘But I can’t sit back and say everything is fine. That would be wrong and careless. We have a duty to ensure our domestic game is still strong and healthy and I’m not sure anyone has all the answers. The Hundred will determine a lot. How are they going to bring in private investment? How much money will be raised? And that money has to filter down to the domestic game. Otherwise it will all fall down in 10 years.’
THERE is no question Stewart’s Surrey are the example for all in the game to follow. But their sheer size and wealth can lead to negativity and jealousy from others less fortunate. ‘It’s an easy line to call us “moneybags”,’ counters Stewart.
‘I get it because we are deemed to be the wealthiest club, and we like that. There’s also a lot of jealousy of us, which we also like. But I want a return on every pound I’ve spent in this job. I treat it like my own money and people will say I’m tight but you can’t waste money or throw it at things. I have a responsibility for everything I spend and there’s also the salary cap to adhere to — and we do adhere to it. We don’t even get close to it.’
The question now is whether a club that has combined winning with producing England players and recruiting wisely — Dan Lawrence is the latest Oval signing because, Stewart says, ‘I’ve always admired Alex Ferguson and he said you should strengthen after you’ve been successful because you need to regenerate’ — can emulate the fabled Surrey side of his father in the 1950s and win three titles in a row.
Stewart sighs. ‘It’s the headline at the minute, “Can Surrey win three in a row?”’ he says. ‘We’re not looking at it that way. If our processes are good, the outcome will look after itself. Of course we want to win it again but there are so many unknowns. What I will say is if we improve on what we did last year, it will take a good side to finish ahead of us.’
And that title would complete the Stewart Surrey dynasty for a man whose only real regrets in a lifetime of cricketing achievement are not winning the Ashes as a player and not being able to fully explore the possibility of becoming England coach. ‘I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to have a look at the England role,’ he adds. ‘I’m not blaming it on Lynn, but her health didn’t allow me to go off again.’
But Stewart, who is 61 on Monday, wants to make one thing clear. He is not retiring. ‘I couldn’t just do nothing, plus Lynn would very quickly get bored with me so I want to stay around the game,’ he says.
‘Surrey asked me if there was a role they could create for me but I said, “Get my replacement first”, and if they have a gap they want filling and it works for me then I’ll look at it. But I don’t want them to just give me a job because I played a long time and was then in this role a long time. That could hinder the new person coming in.
‘I am biased but it doesn’t need ripping up and redoing here. But you still want the new person to come in, observe and then make any subtle changes they feel are right. If they do well and take it to another level, I’ll be the first to say, “That’s brilliant”.’
Until then, Stewart will keep on arriving at the Oval at 6am every day — ‘it’s not to show people I do a long day, it’s more to beat the traffic,’ he insists — before deciding what comes next. But he will always be part of the Surrey family.
‘They did refuse me entry at the Alec Stewart Gate once, and quite right too because I didn’t have my pass,’ he smiles. ‘But I’ll be back, whether I’ll be sitting with the boys in the Peter May Stand or in the pavilion. I’m never going to leave Surrey. They mean everything to me.’
‘They refused me entry at the Alec Stewart Gate. Quite right, I didn’t have my pass!’